Lights days are @ 50-65% of heavy workout weight, 3x10
Heavy days are 4x8, if I can do all 4 sets I up teh weight by 5-10%

I've noticed great gains and gone from 30% (pinchy test) to 20% body fat in 7 weeks, dropping 20 lbs of fat and putting on 10 lbs of muscle. My diet is about 40:40:20 Protein:Carb:Fat caloric intake ratio. (ooo that sounded smarter than I am... lol ). I"ve noticed more a repositioning of body fat than lost fat. Obviously there is some noticable size difference, but I'm still carrying a bit of chub in my lower pecs, underarms and the spare tire.

I want to really maximize fat loss over muscle gain. I don't want to get much bigger, I'm don't want to jeapordize flexability. I perform a type of fire dance and need to put my arms and legs in sometimes awkward positions... anyway. I want to lean up with out bulking up and keep runing across HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and I'm just not clicking on what this is talking about. Could someone explain HIIT or maybe point me in a different direction? I will of course maintain my weight/cardio/diet regime, I'm looking to tweak it to focus more on fat loss tho...

Thanks, and great site!

P.S. anyone that actually caught the 5'6" 185 and 20% BF line and is a bit puzzled, I'm built like Gimly (from LoTR), cept taller, kinda...

Last edited by elemental on Wed Mar 22, 2006 12:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I wouldn't worry about losing your flexability until you actually start to loose it. I love to hear people's excuses about weightlifting. If you stretch right you'd probably have to lift hardcore and not do any cardio for quite sometime before you started to lose flexability. My point is don't let this fear hold you back unless you actually see it start to happen.

There's plenty of information on HIIT and I don't really understand what your questions is. Normal cardio will lower your metabolism throughout the day, where as HIIT will raise it. This higher metabolism will also allow you to build more muscle than doing normal cardio. Start off sprinting for 30 seconds then jogging for 30 seconds and repeat that 4 times. (Sprinting/jogging can be anything: swimming, biking, eliptical, hitting the punching bag) Then ever 2 times you work out, add another set. I haven't quite figured out how to work this into weighlifting, yet. I've heard things such as don't do them on the same day as you lifting or be sure to do them 8 hours apart... just do whatever feels good to you, because doing it at the wrong time is better than not doing it at all.

Losing weight and looking good is a long term goal. When you build muscle, you have less subcutaneous fat (the fat you see) and more fat inside your large muscles (the fat you don't see).

You seem to have had great improvement because you've just started out. Don't be discouraged if you don't see as much improvement over the next couple months; just keep up what you're doing.

Your lifting may (or may not) be too much, especially as you start to lift more weight (your initial gains are probably due to learning to do the exercises and acclimating your muscles to being exercised); if you find yourself getting exhausted tone it back a bit.

I haven't quite figured out how to work this into weighlifting, yet. I've heard things such as don't do them on the same day as you lifting or be sure to do them 8 hours apart... just do whatever feels good to you, because doing it at the wrong time is better than not doing it at all.

Apologies to the topic author, I'm planning to responding to you in a minute.
Anyway, strath, I've heard that if your goal is muscle growth then lifting before cardio is best, as it more than triples the amount of growth hormone in your system (compared to cardio before lifting). But at the same time, I think they should be performed back to back. (This excludes any short cardio warm-up (four or so minutes).) Hope that's what you're looking for!

As for your lifting routine, you're doing way too much work, IMHO. Growth takes place outside the gym. In the gym you plant the seed. Your enthusiasm is to be commended, but doing too much can be just as bad as doing too little

Yeah, looking at topic-post again I think your program looks really good. In fact, I think you should stick to it until you're not getting the results you want. At that point it might be time to change it up. As you may have seen on the site, periodization is key. Variation long-term in workout... duration, intensity, focus, and frequency... is the best path to maintaining gains.

Anyway, strath, I've heard that if your goal is muscle growth then lifting before cardio is best, as it more than triples the amount of growth hormone in your system (compared to cardio before lifting). But at the same time, I think they should be performed back to back. (This excludes any short cardio warm-up (four or so minutes).) Hope that's what you're looking for!

If your goal is only muscle growth then you shouldn't really do cardio at all, because you'll be putting energy into running instead of building muscles; hopefully you can see why this isn't practical.

People are always asking how to mix cardio, lifting, and HIIT, so I'm not sure if I've put all the answers together correctly; I encourage you to search and figure it out for yourself. Please be aware that I was differentiating between HIIT and cardio.

Anyway, strath, I've heard that if your goal is muscle growth then lifting before cardio is best, as it more than triples the amount of growth hormone in your system (compared to cardio before lifting). But at the same time, I think they should be performed back to back. (This excludes any short cardio warm-up (four or so minutes).) Hope that's what you're looking for!

If your goal is only muscle growth then you shouldn't really do cardio at all, because you'll be putting energy into running instead of building muscles; hopefully you can see why this isn't practical.

People are always asking how to mix cardio, lifting, and HIIT, so I'm not sure if I've put all the answers together correctly; I encourage you to search and figure it out for yourself. Please be aware that I was differentiating between HIIT and cardio.

I was assuming that you're going to do cardio and lifting no matter what. If that's the case, then there is no benefit to cardio first, while it has been shown that cardio after lifting has benefits. You're right though that no cardio is best for maximal strength/muscle gains.

At my gym all the machines have build in HIIT programs called interval training, basically its a couple mins at a lower level thats comfortable to do, then spikes up for the same time, then down for some active recovery then up again and its REALLY awesome great workout, apparntly it will strengthen you but burns fat really good and you will continue to burn after you stop exersizing, but most people pick the menu option on the machines that says fat burning and its just you going at a constant rate for a set amnt of time and i think HIIT works much better

oh and yeah weight lifting 6 days a week like that be cautious of the signs of over training, being new you may be able to do it because your intensity isnt up there yet, but as someone else said you make your gains while resting, try to give yourself more than just one day a week where you arent lifting, and i understand you arent working the same muscles every day in a row but you kinda are because they assist with the other exersizes, like your arms get worked pretty good during chest and back work and you are basically working some muscles 6 days a week with no rest at all

I've been making gains on my weight intensity since day 1 and that hasn't slowed. I got my body comp done again today and I'm at 18% BF (7.5 weeks), yay for me! Anyway, I'm coming to the end of my program (another 3 weeks) at which time I should have met my goal of 15% BF. What I"m looking to do now is to "compact" my work out. Bumping up effeciency on my cardio and maximizing strength gains on my weights. However, I spend close to 2 hours a day in the gym right now and often don't have time to do every exercise in my program (core kinda suffers). I was considering going low volume/high intesity for my heavy days and dropping the light days all together. Instead of light days I'd do heavy cardio on those days. This will allow me to spend only an hour a day in the gym.

So while looking for ways to improve the cardio I come across HIIT. I can't view that link from work but will check it out when I get home. So HIIT is basically just doing your cardio and alternating from low intensity to high intesity during the exercise period then?

Just remember all intervals are not the same. HIIT is usually anaerobic, which is what you want. Aerobic intervals are just another way to do your cardio. Do a total balls out sprint with a high resistence setting on a cardio machine for 30 seconds. Then do 30 to 60 seconds of light cardio. Like jogging pace on a low setting. Try to do 5 sprints the first week and work up to more. It is really hard and will wear you out qucik.

As for the weights, great split, and going high intensity low volume is an excellent idea. However after a couple months or so, go low intensity high volume with less rest for a few weeks. So if you do that 3 days and HIIT 3 days, use your remaining day for standard cardio for working heart and lungs. I'd say that's about perfection. It's worked for me.

yes the interval settings on the machines are like that, it spikes up to a sprint then back down to a jog and i always max out the resistance i can handle, some machines have longer sprints and jogs than others but otherwise same program 30-2 mins jog and 30sex-2 min sprints and so on and they get progressivly tougher the sprints until you reach max sprint and then it does that bit a bit then you cool down

There's a lot of information in this thread and I'm a little confused. Since I'm a newbie, I'd like to keep it as simple as possible. I want to maximize strength/muscle gains but I also want to lose fat. So should I do cardio work immediately after lifting or should I do it a day or two later when I'm not lifting?

Either way. After or on another day. I'd recommend the HIIT version and keep it short, i.e 10-15 mins. This shouldn't make too many inroads into your recoverability. And this is if you feel it necessary to do any type of cardio. It was stated earlier that for maximum strength/mass gains, drop the cardio, or keep it minimal. I totally agree.
Tim

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